A Trailblazing Life

Robert D. Farber University Archives and Special Collections, Brandeis

Lisel Judge coaching a student in fencing in 1961

Lisel Judge — who died in Florida on March 23, four days after turning 101 — coached the Brandeis women’s fencing team from 1955 until her retirement in 1981. Along the way, she guided the squad to 16 New England championships. A native of Germany, Judge was barred by the Nazi regime from competing in the 1936 Berlin Olympics because her father was Jewish. Two years later, she and her family left Germany for the United States. In 1996, Judge was inducted into the Joseph M. Linsey Brandeis Athletics Hall of Fame.